


sandwiches through the slot

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Loki messes with people, M/M, Steve gets serious, awkward as hell-Tony, namely Tony, slightly AU, very much so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Director Fury was just asking Natasha to do it when Tony jumped in and volunteered to take her place. The rest of the team- quotation marks were probably necessary around the last word, he figured- and Fury, even, were looking at him as if he'd gone mad, and maybe he had, but really, weren't they used to his impulsive nature by now? He didn't have any particular reason for wanting to be the one who shoved Loki's dinner through a slot. But maybe, he thought, maybe he could get something out of the guy. Information, since they'd all been in a state of trench warfare for about twenty-four hours by now. </p>
<p>It had been Steve, actually, and not Thor who had pointed out that they'd have to feed Loki sometime. Thor, rather, pointed out that they didn't need to eat as often as humans did. And ignored it when Bruce gave the sandwich in the Asgardian's hand a humored look. Fury didn't really give a damn either way, but after Steve insisted it had seemed appropriate for Tony to volunteer, if only to spite the patriotic bastard. So that was probably his reason, anyway. A pretty valiant one.</p>
<p>(In which Tony and Steve figure out Loki's plan and Loki screws with Tony's head) One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sandwiches through the slot

Director Fury was just asking Natasha to do it when Tony jumped in and volunteered to take her place. The rest of the team- quotation marks were probably necessary around the last word, he figured- and Fury, even, proceeded to look at him as if he'd gone mad, and maybe he had, but really, weren't they used to his impulsive nature by now? He didn't have any particular reason for wanting to be the one who shoved Loki's dinner through a slot. But maybe, he thought, maybe he could get something out of the guy. Information, since they'd all been stuck in a state of trench warfare for about twenty-four hours by now. 

It had been Steve, actually, and not Thor who had pointed out that they'd have to feed Loki sometime. Thor, rather, pointed out that they didn't need to eat as often as humans did. And ignored it when Bruce gave the sandwich in the Asgardian's hand a humored look. Fury didn't really give a damn either way, but after Steve insisted it had seemed appropriate for Tony to volunteer, if only to spite the patriotic bastard. So that was probably his reason, anyway. A pretty valiant one.

He tried not to notice that there wasn't actually a slot built for pushing food into the cell, as it hadn't exactly been designed for human use. There was a hatch that was probably for sticking needles and guns through that Tony used instead, holding out the plate of sandwiches because he couldn't, politely speaking, just drop the thing in and let it shatter. He could, actually, but he didn't think about that either.

"Come get it, Fido," he muttered, growing more impatient than he had been when Loki took his time stepping over. Why did the guy walk like that, anyway? Maybe the slow grace to his movements could be explained away as being princely or royal, but Tony thought it just looked hypersexual in a really lazy way. Even the way Loki spoke made Tony think of sex. It was so overdone that it was casual. It was annoying. That, "annoying", was the right word exactly.

He refused to think of any other ones.

The god of mischief and whatever else, maybe dolphins or dogs or something, didn't say anything at first, opting instead to capture Tony's gaze with his own piercing one and use way too much hand to take the plate. He purposefully let his fingers graze the other man's wrist. (Also annoying.) "Thank you," he said finally, his voice too breathy, and as he sat down on the floor of the cell with his meal his expression conveyed no sense of gratitude to Tony whatsoever. He took a clean bite into his sandwich. "Was there anything else you needed?" he asked, queried, more like, and Tony just stared at him in mild irritation for a moment before answering in the negative and exiting the area.

Of course, he came back within the hour because, ironically enough, the Helicarrier's Hulk-proof prison cell was significantly less tense than the team's adopted meeting room. Loki seemed to be expecting him; the plate was already gone. Or maybe he had made it look like that when it wasn't; the guy had already messed with enough S.H.I.E.L.D. agents' minds with his optical tricks, it wouldn't surprise anyone if he tried escaping again with their aid. And he had tried, but had, fortunately, been unsuccessful thus far in his endeavors.

"What's your game?" Tony asked finally, leaning on the glass of the cell. He eyed the man inside. "You're obviously not getting out anytime soon by your own efforts, so why even try?"

Loki's smile was a bent thing, as royal as any of his expressions but still capable of scaring the shit out of little children, Tony thought absentmindedly. The god's lips moved unfairly in their sensuality; Tony didn't even want to look at them so he concentrated on the shirt. "It's always good to be tested," Loki said, coming closer to the cell glass. "And- it's fun."

Before Tony could reply to that with something other than a screwed-up look, the other man turned around, and when he turned back to Tony he was Steve. "You know, I never did bother to learn your pledge of allegiance," he said thoughtfully, running a hand through the blond hair atop his head. "Care to teach me? I like to get in character."

Tony rolled his eyes at the lookalike. "You'll have to get that creepy look off your face before you do that. I can remove it, if you'd like," he suggested, raising his eyebrows in challenge at Loki.

Of course, the challenge was accepted.

"You can remove whatever you want," Loki answered, tilting his head toward Tony to extend the meaning of the phrase. "This thing is a bit tight, anyway." He fingered Steve's dorky uniform, and Tony made a point of not looking at the hands. 

"Consider who it belongs to," said Tony, probably getting off track as he did so. Information. He was trying to get information. Somehow. "You're all decked up as the king of uptight-" He didn't even have to finish the sentence because he could see Steve coming up the bridge leading to them in the reflection of the clean glass of the cell. Unafraid, he snorted in humor at the look on his comrade's face.

"Tell him to change," Steve said under his breath to Tony when he reached him. They were all a little far gone from lack of sleep, but he seemed especially annoyed out of all of them, unpredictable as that was, maybe. The ongoing battle had brought out the soldier in him, apparently.

Tony looked back at Loki with a shrug. The god said something, quietly, about America before changing again. Not into himself. Of course not. Tony couldn't look at him at all now, not in this form, so he turned his back on the cell entirely and oriented himself toward the good captain. "What's up?" he asked casually, crossing his arms. 

"You look really red," Steve observed, then pushed past Tony without waiting for an answer. He looked into the cell, eyes sharp. "You think that's funny?" he asked Loki, his tone biting now. "Playing Banner? Not even he’s laughing,” Steve said irritably, wildly gesturing back at Tony, who was attempting to hide his face with a not-so-casually placed hand. Loki smirked. The soldier paused, giving his teammate a curious look. “Why are you...?”

“He has an awkward childlike crush on this body,” Loki said boredly. He smiled, though, at Tony when the man glanced back at him. Seeing Bruce- no, Bruce’s face, and not even the real one- give him that sort of stare was really quite distracting. Tony wasn’t going to be forgetting it anytime soon, anyway.

“It’s not a crush,” he muttered, but maybe that just made things worse because it implied a deeper infatuation. He frowned at himself.

“Loki, I’m going to have to strongly suggest that you change back to your given form,” Steve said stiffly, looking fairly embarrassed about Tony. It figured. 

“You sound like a cop,” Tony commented lazily to Steve, still with his back to Loki. Bruce-Loki. “An unsuccessful one.”

“Mr. Stark,” his teammate said warningly, gritting his teeth slightly, “I’m trying to get information out of our prisoner.”

“Well, thanks for pointing that out in front of him.”

“As if you didn’t already do that.”

“I didn’t, actually.”

There was a beat of silence, or, more descriptive, tension, before they started bickering again. Loki crossed his arms on his side of the glass, raising his eyebrows at the two as they kept going. Uninterested, he released the illusion he’d been holding around his body and let his appearance collapse back into his usual one. After another minute he cleared his throat, and the two Avengers looked up, appearing to have just remembered him.

“If you’re done...?” His eyes bored into Tony’s, and to his slight satisfaction it still had the same effect Bruce’s had, or at least a similar one. The man scowled back at Loki, but he didn’t look away this time. 

“I’d appreciate you not putting on that sort of show unless you’re planning on delivering,” Tony said under his breath to the god, and Loki smiled slightly at that. His grin only widened when Steve cast a glare at the billionaire. (Actually, he was probably worth much more than billions, but that was beside the point.) “And the Banner thing really was in bad taste,” Tony added.

“I wouldn’t talk,” Loki replied rather snappishly, and Tony grimaced. “Maybe making a pass at the monster himself was also in bad taste, don’t you think?”

“Let me in there, I want to punch him,” Tony growled to Steve, but the soldier just ignored him in favor of looking at Loki, the sharp look to his face more defined now.

“Especially since he’s straight?” Loki continued, lifting his head rather arrogantly as he did so. Tony threw him the finger before turning back to Steve.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

“Something he said.” Steve narrowed his eyes.

Tony shrugged and gave the god another vulgar gesture over his shoulder. “Like what?”

“The monster.”

He opened his mouth to reply and then, abruptly, moved back to the cell wall. “How about you just tell us what your plan is,” Tony suggested to the prisoner inside, his eyes and stance considerably wild. He was awkward and emotional compared to the graceful thing inside the cell, but hell if he cared. 

Loki moved so that he was just on the other side of the glass by Tony, their faces inches apart. “I think not,” he said slowly, his gaze at the other man burning. “I can say this, though. Maybe you’re not concentrating on the right thing, though. Am I really the enemy?” 

Steve got it first. “Shit,” he said, and was off without explanation, already speaking in his earpiece to Fury before the door had shut closed behind him. Tony, left behind, took another half dozen seconds before his non-military-trained brain put two and two together. 

He stumbled back from the cell. “Banner,” he said aloud, and Loki merely widened his eyes in mocking at the other man in answer. “You’re trying to- bring him out-”

Then, of course, there was a loud roaring sound that ripped through the closed door with what probably shouldn’t have been a surprising volume but was. The sound, the footsteps (stomps, more like) set the very floor of the Helicarrier shaking along with them. After having to catch his balance Tony looked up at the cell’s inhabitant and groaned. More frustrating shapeshifting.

“Look like yourself, will you?!” He had to look away again.

Things only went downhill from there, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> You'd think listening to the same song on repeat while writing this would make me sick of the song) Welp) Humanity)
> 
> If I get enough good practice doing awkward one-shots then hopefully I'll get to awkward multichaps eventually) Feedback appreciated and such...


End file.
